mo isom lsu
“We reviewed her skills and the things that she could do and felt like there are about four guys on the team right now that are ahead of anyone who tried out, including Mo,” LSU head coach Les Miles said Tuesday in front of a handful of local reporters Miles says Isom was just not ready for certain aspects the kicker must handle.
“The way we kick off into the corner, we count on our kicker to make some tackles and frankly that's something that I’m not comfortable that she can do. That's one of those spots that you can put a person that can’t tackle.”
But the four year soccer player won't go down without a fight.
“I think she will go back and concentrate on extra points and field goals. She didn't want to take it that she didn't make the team and asked 'if I get a lot better can I try again’ I said sure,” Miles added with a smile.
According to Isom's twitter account Tuesday afternoon that's the plan.
Her tweet read: “I will continue working my hardest with the team through Spring and Summer and see where I stand in August. There is still much to this journey and I will not give up on my dream”
Coach Miles says he's 100 percent certain this was not a publicity stunt.
“It’s too painful to be denied. Who in the heck would go through this for publicity? Not anyone I know.”
Now she’s trying to show her kicking power translates to that, ahem, other kind of football. The one on the gridiron, where LSU fields one of the best programs in the country.
Isom, a 21-year-old whose collegiate soccer career wrapped up last fall, is one of a few students trying out for placekicker on LSU's football team – last year's national championship runners-up – this month.
She faces gigantic odds. LSU is returning its starting field goal kicker – Drew Alleman, who tied for the nation’s best field goal percentage at 88.9% last year – and kickoff specialist James Hairston.
But she made some long field goals and deep kickoffs in tryouts this week, and she says she’d be ready to take some big hits in one of the nation’s premier football conferences, the SEC.
“Do you see my size?” Isom told CNN affiliate WBRZ on Thursday, the second day of placekicker tryouts at LSU. “Everyone thinks that I am the average size and weight of a female. I am 6-foot-1, almost, and weigh about 190 pounds. Yes, I just said that on camera. It is all muscle."
Six-foot-one, 190 pounds. That almost compares favorably to star LSU cornerback Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu, whose 5-foot-9, 175-pound frame was all he needed to terrify opposing offenses for two years.
“I can take a hit. I’m just fearless,” she said.
LSU head coach Les Miles has said it’s unlikely the team will take a walk-on kicker, unless that kicker is exceptional, The Times-Picayune reported Friday.
In a news conference this week, Miles said Isom would be considered “if she gave us an opportunity and an advantage."
“There has to be an advantage to the team,” Miles said. “The good thing about this is that she’s an athlete. She’s been through team before, and she understands commitment. I would have much less reservations with her than I would with any number of other people who frankly didn’t know what they were getting into.”
Miles said he had no timetable on making a decision on tryout placekickers.
An LSU video posted on YouTube this week shows Isom hitting a 40-yard field goal indoors. She said she struggled with outdoor kicking on Tuesday because of the wind, but hit two 50-yard field goals on Thursday, The Times-Picayune reported.
Isom recorded 30 shutouts and a 43-17-9 record in 69 starts for the LSU women’s soccer team from 2008 to 2011.
She would be far from the first female kicker to make an NCAA Division I team. Women who’ve made such teams include Ashley Martin, who in 2001 became the first woman to score in a Division I-AA football game, and Katie Hnida, whose two extra points for New Mexico in August 2003 made her the first woman to score in a Division I-A contest.
Isom is attempting to follow in the footsteps of former New Mexico kicker Katie Hnida, who became the first woman to play in a Division I-A football game in 2002 and the first to score in a Divison I-A game the following year.
"I think it's probably safe to say that there won't be any of those people joining the team this spring," Miles said. "But it really would depend on how it all came out. If there was an exceptional kicker, no matter who it was, we would see it and certainly make that opportunity available."
Miles said he would have no reservations about bringing Isom on to the roster if she provided an advantage at the position.
Isom, who would have one year of football eligibility, shined in her first year of LSU soccer in 2008, setting an LSU freshman record with seven shutouts. She became the first goalie in school history to score a goal on a 90-yard free kick against BYU, which made ESPN's "Top 10 Plays."
Isom started the majority of her senior soccer season, posting a 1.07 goals against average. LSU was 13-5-1 in games she started.
"The good thing about it is she's an athlete," Miles said. "She's been through the routine before. She understands the commitment. I would have much less reservations with her than I would any other number of people that frankly didn't know what they were getting in to."
Isom spent the last year training to be a kicker on the football team and worked out with individual players in the fall of last season but didn't practice with the entire team.
Miles said he didn't get a good look at Isom during that time, but heard the workout went well.